


That's What Friends Are For

by rsadelle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 07:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2974241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike doesn't answer his question until they've turned back and are almost to the place where they have to leave the path to walk up to the house. "I don't want to be that weird guy who can't get his shit together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's What Friends Are For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dine/gifts).



> For dine, who wanted anything about Carts and Richie.
> 
>  **Content Note:** Non-celebrity partners appear in this story; skip it if that's not your thing.

Mike shows up unannounced with Arnold in tow and asks, "Want to walk down to the beach?" when Jeff answers the door.

"Sure," Jeff says. "Let me get Mack and Miley." He lets Mike in, and Mike and Arnold hang around the entryway while Jeff rounds up the dogs, kisses Megan, and clips leashes onto Mack and Miley's collars.

Mack races ahead, of course, with Arnold right behind him and Miley ambling along leisurely. Jeff ambles along leisurely too, and Mike's pace is leisurely, but he's clearly tense about something.

Jeff lets it be; Mike can't ever keep shit to himself for that long, and he'll probably spill before they head back to the house.

The dogs aren't allowed on the beach itself, but Mike and Jeff turn down the jogging path and let the dogs pull them along.

Mike heaves out a giant sigh when he's ready to talk, like he needs to get Jeff's attention. Jeff tips his head a little in Mike's direction to show he's listening.

"Do you think I should propose to Lindsey over Christmas?" It's kind of a whine, not a happy question at all.

Jeff stops, pulls them to the side of the path where they can sit down on a bench. He sits down. Mike practically falls down onto it.

"Do you want to propose to her?"

"No," Mike says. "I mean, I love her, but no."

"Then don't," Jeff advises.

Mike sighs again. "It feels like I'm supposed to."

Jeff looks at him - since when does Mike use that as a metric for how he should run his personal life? - and pats his knee. "Is this because Kopi's having a kid?"

Mike makes a face. Bingo.

"You got married," Mike says. "Kopi's having a kid. Quickie and Brownie have kids. Kinger had a kid last season. Toff's pretty serious about Taylore. I think Pears is dating someone he's serious about."

Jeff didn't know that last part. "Pears is seeing someone?"

"Everyone's seeing someone," Mike says, irritated.

Jeff holds up his hand. "Right, not the point. You're seeing Lindsey."

"Yeah," Mike says with a sigh. "But it doesn't feel like the same thing."

Jeff asks, "Does it have to?" and stands up so they can keep walking.

Mike doesn't answer his question until they've turned back and are almost to the place where they have to leave the path to walk up to the house. "I don't want to be that weird guy who can't get his shit together."

Jeff hmms. They're a block away from the beach when he tells Mike, "The first time Megan and I talked about getting married was when we were deciding if she was going to move out here. It doesn't have to be a one-time conversation." He nudges Mike with an elbow. "And you don't have to propose if you don't want to."

*

Mike comes back from Canada unengaged, so Jeff supposes he took his advice. He does come back happy to have seen Lindsey, so at least it went well.

*

Jeff goes out for dinner on the road with Toff, Pears, Joner, and Mike a couple of weeks before Valentine's Day, which is close enough to it that Joner's chirping Toff about his plans.

Toff keeps laughing and turning pink.

"Okay," Pears says, "if you're such an expert, what do you get for someone on your first Valentine's Day together?"

"Oh, so you're talking about this now?" Joner says. "First of all, how long has it been?"

"Almost five months," Pears says. "And we were texting over the summer."

"What the fuck?" Joner says. "You met some girl _last year_ and didn't tell us about it? You asshole."

Pears shrugs without actively responding to that.

"Jewelry," Joner says. "Nice, but not super expensive."

"And go out somewhere nice," Toff says.

"Fancy desserts," Jeff suggests.

Mike leans forward, getting more involved than Jeff expects from him in this kind of conversation. "You have to think about what they like, and do that. Like, Megan likes fancy desserts, so Jeff does that. Lindsey likes it when I bake her cake, so I do that."

"You're going to mail cake to Canada?" Joner asks.

"No, dumbass," Mike says. "I'm renewing her Netflix subscription and sending her a Starbucks gift card and flowers because I know she'll like that. I'll bake her a cake next time she's here."

"Starbucks," Joner says skeptically. "That's romantic."

"Yeah, it fucking is," Mike says. "She's working all kinds of hours, she drinks a lot of coffee, and it means she can spend her money on whatever the fuck she wants. That's the point." He directs that at Pears with an intensity that seems a little higher than is called for in the situation. "It's not about what other people think is romantic. It's about what they want."

Pears looks like he's taking that in, and he laughs when Toff shoots down Joner's next suggestion of expensive vacations.

Back at the hotel, they turn opposite directions out of the elevator, Pears, Toff, and Joner at one end of the hall and Mike and Jeff at the other.

"You know something you're not telling me," Jeff says to Mike when they're far enough down the hall that they're out of earshot.

"I don't _know_ ," Mike says. The look on his face is apologetic, which means he probably wouldn't tell Jeff even if he did know something.

Jeff shakes his head and wishes Mike a good night as they go into their own rooms.

*

In March, Jeff and Megan have a dinner party on an off night. They invite Toff and Taylore, Pears, Joner, and Mike.

Pears calls in response to the invitation and asks Jeff, oddly hesitant, "Toff said Taylore's coming too, and Megan will be there. Is it okay if I bring someone?"

Jeff doesn't chirp him for it, just says, "Yes," and puts a lid on his curiosity for the time being.

Everyone else is already there when Pears rings the bell and Jeff goes to let him in.

"Come on in," Jeff says, before he really registers who's with Pears.

"Jeff," Pears says, "this is Aaron. Aaron, Jeff."

Aaron is an average-looking, dark-haired guy in jeans and a button-down, with thick-rimmed hipster glasses and dark hair. "Nice to meet you. Tanner says a lot of good things about you."

"All true," Jeff says automatically. That makes it easy not to let his surprise at Pears' "someone" get in the way of being polite. "Nice to meet you. Everyone else is this way." He scoops up Mack where he's trying to climb up Aaaron's pants. "Sorry about that."

Aaron smiles. "I grew up with cats. I'm used to that kind of thing."

Pears has his hand on the small of Aaron's back when they get to where everyone else is crowded around the edges of the kitchen, so there's no mistaking who this guy is to Pears.

"This is Aaron," Pears says, and there's a small pool of silence in the kitchen that's mostly covered up by Mike stepping forward with a smile and introducing himself.

Toff and Joner don't seem to know quite what to do about Pears bringing a dude to dinner, but they've all had enough media training that they keep their shit together and don't make it awkward for Aaron.

It gets even less awkward over dinner when they find out Aaron's majoring in computer science and Megan geeks out with him in a conversation the rest of them are completely unable to follow. There's an affectionate smile on Pears' face while he watches Aaron talk.

Pears comes in and helps Jeff grab more beer for everyone while they're hanging around the fireplace outside after dinner.

"Aaron seems nice," Jeff says.

"Yeah," Pears says. "He is." There's more confidence there now, but there's still an edge of nervousness.

Jeff throws an arm around Pears' shoulders. "You look happy with him."

Pears leans against his side for a second. "Thanks, Carts."

When they leave, Jeff tells Pears to bring Aaron over again some other time, and they both smile at him.

Toff and Taylore leave after them, and then Joner, and then it's just Jeff and Megan and Mike hanging out on the couch with the dogs.

Jeff punches Mike's shoulder. "You asshole."

"Ow, fucker. What?"

"You could have warned me." Jeff doesn't need to be any more specific for Mike to know what he's talking about.

"I didn't know for sure," Mike says. "He didn't exactly say."

"But you knew something," Jeff says. He puts one arm around Megan's shoulders and kicks Mike's ankle. "I wonder what Pears got him for Valentine's Day."

Mike barks out a laugh. "We should have asked."

*

Mike comes over without Arnold, and without his car.

"Did you walk here?" Jeff asks when he opens the door.

"On the beach," Mike answers. Jeff doesn't need the further explanation, "Needed to think," to get that that's the reason for the walk.

"You want to come in?" Jeff asks. "Or are we walking back down to the beach?"

Mike looks past him at the house and behind himself at the road. Jeff's already grabbing his sunglasses from the entryway table when Mike says, "Beach."

"Going for a walk with Mike," Jeff calls into the house. He waits just long enough for Megan's acknowledging shout before he steps out of the house and locks the door behind him.

They turn south on the beach instead of heading back the way Mike came. They turn back when they hit the harbor, and they're walking north past the pier again before Mike talks.

"My mom thinks I should propose to Lindsey. She said a Cup day would be good for it if we win again."

Jeff winces at both the meddling and the jinxing. "Do you want to now?"

"No." Mike catches a Frisbee that arches away from the group playing with it toward them. He tosses it back to the kids it belongs to.

"Then don't," Jeff says, same advice he gave once before, trying to be patient about it.

"What if she wants me to?" Mike asks, looking out at the ocean.

Jeff bumps against him. "Talk to her about it."

"I don't want to break up with her," Mike sulks.

Jeff sighs and doesn't say anything while they carefully go around a family building a sand castle. "If she's waiting for you to propose," he says when they're alone again, "and you don't, she's going to break up with you anyway."

He can tell from the shift in Mike's body language that he hasn't actually thought about it that way.

"Fuck you," Mike says, lighter than he was when he showed up on Jeff's doorstep.

They walk all the way back to Mike's house where Arnold slobbers all over Jeff. Jeff calls Megan to come get him. He hugs tightly Mike before he and Megan head out to get dinner as long as they're already out of the house.

*

Mike's eyes are tired and red-rimmed when he gets to the rink for their last game of the regular season, afternoon home game against San Jose. Jeff notices Brownie have a quiet word with him, and Pears clap his shoulder bracingly. Mike might be tired, but he's quiet in a settled way, so Jeff doesn't worry about it too much.

"I talked to Lindsey last night," Mike tells him when they're in the hallway waiting to go out onto the ice. "We're not breaking up."

That explains the way he looks and sounds a little like he's been crying.

"Not getting married either."

Jeff smiles so Mike knows he's glad they worked that out, but he can't resist chirping him a little. "Guess you should have listened to me in the first place."

"Fuck you," Mike says with a grin.

Jeff laughs and steps back so they can fistbump the guys as they file out onto the ice. He puts a little extra oomph into knocking arms with Mike and heads out onto the ice in front of him.


End file.
